SOLAR SEA POWER PLANTS—ELECTRIC POWER FROM THE OCEAN THERMAL DIFFERENCE

This paper reviews past and current efforts to generate electric power using the natural temperature difference in the ocean waters at different depths. The scheme has been named Solar Sea Power Plants, SSPP for short. SSPP's are essentially pollution-free and can potentially meet an appreciable portion of the electric power demand of the United States mainland, the islands of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other countries around the globe. An analysis of the cost of SSPP's is presented and it is shown that SSPP's can compete economically with conventional fossil or nuclear-fuel power plants. Finally, problems of system design are discussed with particular emphasis on layout, structures, and various naval engineering problems.